Portable communication devices capable of linking to a data network such as the Internet are now being provided with more memory capabilities than has been usual in the past. This development has allowed users to store much more information on their portable devices than was previously possible. For example, a personal digital assistant (PDA) such as 3-Com's Palm Pilot™ now has up to 2 MB of memory. Such a PDA can store approximately 6,000 addresses, 5 years worth of scheduled appointments, and up to 200 e-mail messages.
In addition to the capability of storing more information on such as a PDA, users typically have much personal information stored in “back-end” database servers located anywhere on a data network such as the Internet. Companies such as Hotmail™ and Yahoo™ use these back-end servers to store e-mail and other message information for users.
Generally, a user wishing to access his or her e-mail account or other information account from a portable internet-capable device such as a PDA must have the device authenticated to the server storing the desired information. Conduit software on a cooperating PC is responsible for synchronizing the data on the portable device with the data in such a back-end server. The synchronization process is generally known in the art and involves replacing data on the portable with new updated data from the server and vice versa. In the simple case of e-mail, the conduit application downloads any new mail from the server and uploads any new mail authored by a user operating the PDA. In addition to e-mail, conduit programs are available for synchronizing data from many different types of data sources.
A problem with the prior art methods and systems is that for a user to successfully access and receive data to a portable device (PD) he or she must provide an appropriate password and log-in information to access the site. In other words, the data source must know the portable device by configuration and password. A user having many different sites that are routinely accessed would have to remember many passwords, log-in codes, screen names, etc. in order to successfully interact with all the sites. Moreover, conduit software programs that accomplish data synchronization tasks between network data sources and portable devices are typically proprietary in nature and configured only for one host that oversees the data sources. Such a host is typically the provider of the conduit application, which resides on a user's PC.
In a system known to the inventor and referenced under the documents listed in the Cross-Reference to Related Documents section, data may be collected, aggregated, and restructured to be delivered to or held for access for a variety of wireless portable devices including PDAs, cellular phones, and even such as paging devices. The system uses a data center for interfacing various portable devices that operate on usually wireless communication networks, and PC interfaces for communicating with such as PDAs and like peripherals. The system is capable of aggregating data from many sources into a common data store with each updated data summary tagged to a user ID. However, this system requires that a user of a portable device supply device configuration and authentication information to the service for accessing summary data. Therefore, a password and log-in is still required, at least for the aggregate service, in order to operate within the scope of the data gathering and presentation system known to the inventors.
It is desired that users of portable devices be relieved of a requirement for storing a variety of passwords, log-in names and the like on their machines for accessing various data sources. Although the data-gathering and presentation service, known also as an Internet portal service, maintains, and manages passwords and log-in names or codes for subscribers, authentication to the service still must be completed whenever a subscriber wishes to synchronize his or her portable device with aggregated data. Prior-art data synchronization methods do not offer optimum security or convenience as was described further above.
A system known to the inventor allows for instant log-in to network servers and services from portable devices through computer-station Internet hosts. The system has a first software instance executing on the computer station, including a location code (H-token) generator and a storage location reserved for the H-token, a second software instance executing on the network server, including a password code (P-token) generator, and one or more tables relating P-tokens, H-tokens, and subscriber's user names and passwords, a third software instance executing on the PD, and a storage location on the PD reserved for a P-token different than the user's password.
Upon a log-in request signal to the Internet Host (IH) from the PD, the IH opens a communication link to the network server, requests the P-token from the PD, and, receiving the P-token, furnishes both the P-token and the IH-stored H-token, if any, to the network server, and the network server, only upon finding a match between P-token, H-token, and a valid subscriber, validates log-in without requesting user name and password. Methods are provided for generating new P-tokens by enabled servers, sending the new P-tokens to enabled PDs, and associating the new tokens with users and location codes, to validate new PDs to the system, and also for generating new H-tokens, validating new Internet Hosts to the system.
This system eliminates the need for a user to provide password or login information to access a routinely visited data source, and offers a protection against a single-point security breech of the data-gathering and presentation service. The method and apparatus is a convenience to users that routinely access more than one network-based data source from a PD such as a PDA.
It is known in the art that in most data synchronizing schemes, when data is downloaded from a network server to a portable device, the data is typically downloaded in its entirety and indexed by time and date stamping in order that new data records may be determined. When many data records are being sent from a plurality of hosts, or compiled from the hosts by an aggregation server and then sent to a user, the process for comparing old data records stored on a receiving device and new data records included with old records sent takes considerable time and computing effort. This is partly because all available data is downloaded over the network before a determination is made concerning which of the plurality of records will actually be downloaded to the requesting device.
It has occurred to the present inventor that in instances wherein an Internet source sends data records for synchronization to a requesting portable device, bandwidth and resident memory are being utilized unnecessarily. In the case of a data aggregation service that compiles numerous records for numerous users, much bandwidth may be saved if only new records could be sent over the shared bandwidth to users.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus wherein only the latest data records for synchronization are transmitted from an Internet data source to a portable device such as a requesting PDA. Such a method and apparatus would enable data aggregation services and other data services to save considerable bandwidth and time when servicing a large number of users.